Rise of the Triad Lands July 31

It’s easy to forget that Rise of the Triad wasn’t a particularly good game when it originally came out in 1994. It arrived after Doom and within a few weeks of Descent, and used a modified version of the Wolfenstein engine which limited the level design to flat floors and 90-degree angles. Speaking as someone who’d gotten his first 486/66 with 16MB RAM PC the year before, the level architecture restrictions were hard to accept. It was worth getting used to, though, because despite the engine’s limitations the insane weapons and ridiculous gore made what should have been a straighforward FPS fantastically fun to play despite the enemies being kind of dull. There was no reason a sequel couldn’t have easily addressed its issues, and then 19 years passed.

Rather than a sequel, Rise of the Triad is getting a reboot that’s been looking like a load of fun since its announcement last year. It’s finally got a release date and price too, and that’s July 31 from Steam, GOG, and a couple of other places that will give out Steam keys, priced at a wallet-pleasing $15. The pre-order bonus is The Apogee Throwback Pack, which includes the original Rise of the Triad as one of its four games, but it’s probably worth warning you that something in the movement is incredibly headache-inducing. This isn’t a problem the new game should have, however, and the launch trailer shows off an FPS loaded with potential. It’s still far too early to guess how good this is going to be, so caveat emptor for now, but with any luck we’ll be shooting like it’s the 90s in just a couple of weeks.